Expositions, performances and a refurbished stadium for the next stage of Chile’s Bicentennial Month

September 7: Santiago’s Museo Bellas Artes celebrates its centennial alongside the nation’s bicentennial by launching the centennial exposition Del Pasado al Presente. In 1910, the Museo Bellas Artes commissioned artists from around the world to produce new works in honor of its inauguration and Chile’s centennial. Del Pasado al Presente will focus on these original works as well as new works by 34 artists from the same nations that participated in the museum’s inaugural exhibition 100 years ago.

September 9-12: In the fertile Maule Valley, one of Chile’s primary wine producing regions, the city of Curicó will put on its annual Fiesta de la Chilenidad. Performances of traditional dance and music, expositions of local artisans and an ample supply of traditional food will fill the Parque Balmaceda from Thursday to Sunday of this week.

September 10: The Universidad de Concepción and the Centro Cultural Bosque Nativo in the Lake District city of Puerto Varas will open an exposition devoted to the work of the Generación del Trece. This closely aligned group of painters, nearly all born in the last decade of the 19th century, came of age under French influence, turning the aesthetic eye of impressionism on the social and cultural conditions of Chile. Produced primarily between 1910 and 1915, the collected work of these young artists today offers a potent portrait of Chile at the time of its centennial. The exposition will run in Puerto Varas from September 10 to October 12 at the Galería de Arte Bosque Nativo.

September 11: The Atacama desert in Chile’s northern reaches is well known as the driest desert in the world. Every several years, depending on variable weather patterns affected by El Niño, the desert bursts into flower in a rare display known as the desierto florido. At noon on September 11th, the Orquesta Cámara de Chile under the baton of Juan Pablo Izquierdo will give an outdoor concert amongst the flowers in Parque Pan de Azucar, a desert park along the Pacific coast.

September 12: Built originally in 1938, Santiago’s Estadio Nacional near Nuñoa hosts some of Santiago’s major sporting and musical events. The Estadio Nacional was a major venue in the 1962 World Cup in Chile, and since 1990 has hosted many of Santiago’s largest concerts, given by artists like Madonna, Michael Jackson, The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney among others. The renovation of the stadium, which began in 2009, ends tonight when the stadium is officially reopened to the public at 6:30pm with a match between Chile and Uruguay’s under-20 football teams.